Fill in the blank. Life is a…
Struggle?
Gift?
Classroom?
Journey?
…?
Your choice of metaphor here is revealing. It shows how you feel about your life and what you pay attention to.
If you view life as a gift, you will take time to count your blessings and reflect on how your life isn’t of your own making. On the other hand, if you think of life as a classroom, you will approach life’s setbacks as teachable moments, looking always to grow and improve.
These are powerful frames to make sense of our experience.
We tend to think we see the world directly, yet it might be more accurate to say that we see it through different words, images, models, and stories. George Lakoff, author of ‘Metaphors We Live By’, wrote:
‘In all aspects of life… we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphors. We draw inferences, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.’
Once we recognise the ubiquity of metaphor in our daily lives, we can look more closely at the metaphors we use to define our reality.
If we turn our attention to Western societies, we can see that one of the most pervasive metaphors today is of life as a game.
Life As a Game
Last year, sales of video games generated more revenue than Hollywood and the music industry combined. Meanwhile, different parts of our lives have become ‘gamified,’ from social media and fitness, to dating and work. We talk about ‘levelling up’ in our careers, with its ladder of promotions and KPIs, compete to get more ‘followers’ on social media and ‘likes’ on online dating apps, and scan at our smartwatches to check if we’ve completed our 10,000 steps a day. Games loom large in our cultural imagination.
It’s tempting to place responsibility for this trend squarely at the feet of the designers and the capitalist system they operate in. According to this narrative, the systems we use are explicitly ‘gamified’ to keep us engaged. This engagement is then translated into profit.
However, this is only part of the story. When we focus too much on those who design these systems, we absolve ourselves of our responsibility for engaging with them. We ought to also ask: why might we especially want or need to play these games in the first place? Which of our unmet needs do games promise to satisfy? By investigating these questions, we can hold up a mirror to ourselves and the society we live in.
In our daily lives, many of us feel disempowered, anxious, and prone to self-doubt. At work, we sense we are subject to larger forces beyond our control, a cog in a system we had no part in creating. In quieter moments, we worry about the direction of our lives, questioning if we are doing what we should be doing, and if this is what we really want. We we wonder if we are making a success of our short time on Earth.
Games offer an escape from these troubling feelings; they are antidotes to existential unease. When we are in a game, we know what we’re doing. There are clear rules, simple objectives, and success can be quantified with points systems, awards, and leader boards. For a while when we are playing a game the world folds into something manageable; something finite and obvious. We feel safe and in control. Games, then, offer us three things that we often lack in our daily lives: agency, clarity of purpose, and sharply defined measures of progress.
Games also give us a way to temporarily escape the suffocating openness of the world. We don’t ponder ‘why am I playing this game?’ when we are sufficiently immersed in one. Instead, the limits of the game for a time become the limits of our world.
The value of these limitations was well-recognised by the nineteenth century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. He wrote:
‘Limitations always make for happiness. We are happy in proportion as our range of vision, our sphere of work, our points of contact with the world, are restricted and circumscribed.’
Although Schopenhauer wasn’t writing specifically about games, it is directly applicable to them. When we play a game, we are happy to restrict our points of contract with the world. They offer us protection from the anxiety and doubt that afflicts so much of modern living.
The Problems
While games are a comforting respite from the stresses and strains of daily life, their seductive power can be dangerous. Since they narrow the focus of what we care about, they can lead us to lose sight of what truly matters. An employee may take a higher paying job that’s less fulfilling to compete in a game for status. A serial dater may rack up their numbers at the expense of building more meaningful connections. An Instagrammer might lose their authenticity in slavish pursuit of likes and followers (as in the Hollywood film ‘Ingrid Goes West’).
This is the problem of ‘metric fixation’; once we select a measure, it gives us permission to ignore anything it doesn’t measure. As a result, we miss much of what is meaningful or important. This truth was perhaps best expressed in a William Bruce Cameron quote (often misattributed to Einstein), ‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.’
How do you know if you’re making progress in life? How do you know, indeed, how good your life is? It’s difficult to face the fact that there are no easy answers to these questions. Far easier and more comforting, then, to grasp for simple and quantifiable ways to measure how we’re doing. Hence the allure of games; they are a convenient way to forestall deeper reflection about what really counts. We feel that if we take some particular measure of what matters, we can avoid taking a stance on our vision of the good life, and the values we ought to adopt. Yet this isn’t possible- we are always committed.
A second problem is a direct result of what makes games so appealing; their narrowness of concern also makes them fragile. Since they necessarily exclude so much, we may find out only too late that playing them won’t bring the satisfaction we crave.
Oscar Wilde once wrote, ‘There are two great tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.’ Succeeding in anything (particularly when we complete it) can prompt a crisis of desire. When we are no longer striving- as we have achieved what we set out for- we fall back on reflecting on the game and our achievement. This can transform the object of our desire into something underwhelming or even pointless.
This can happen even to those who perform at the very highest levels. Take Olympic athletes. According to a study from 2021, around 24% of Olympic and Paralympic athletes reported experiencing high or very high psychological distress after the Games. The research indicated that because athletes invested so much in succeeding at their game, they struggled to know what to do or who they were after it. Many experienced depression as a result.
This also applies to the games of everyday life. We believe and act as if there are points systems, and leader boards, signifying who is doing well in games for status, or wealth, or recognition. We imagine that if we secure a certain social media following, or get to the top of the corporate ladder, we will have succeeded at the game.
Yet the view from the top often looks quite different to what we expect. Instead, we may feel curiously empty, as the goal that gave our lives meaning has been exhausted. Beware, then, of playing games mindlessly. They may not bring the lasting fulfilment you crave.
The solution
So, what should we do about this?
On the one hand, we want to shore up the fragility of games, so that we don’t confront these crises of desire. On the other, we want to benefit from the advantages of games as largely closed systems where we feel comfortable and in control.
We ought to take the middle way. Better to occasionally question the games we play, but not be paralysed by constant reflection. As the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said, ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. By examining the games we play, we can figure out both what they minimise and neglect and whether they are worth playing at all.
In the first instance, you may like your job and enjoy progressing in the corporate game but find that you miss opportunities for rest and play. You can either look to incorporate these into the game itself- perhaps by taking a more creative role or working a four-day week- or find ways outside of work to satisfy these needs.
You may also decide that a game will not bring you fulfilment and choose to reject the game altogether. For example, you may choose not to compete in the game for attention and status on Instagram or leave the corporate life to train as a carpenter. Some may envy your choice to reject the game. Others might judge you for it. Take solace from Marla Daniels in the American television show ‘The Wire’, ‘you cannot lose if you do not play.’
You may also reflect that some game is worth playing. In this case, you would be better off curbing your reflection about it while playing. Instead you can take inspiration from the Nike mantra, ‘Just do it.’
Take time (occasionally!) to reflect on these questions:
· What games are you playing? How do you measure success in them? (i. e. what are the points systems and leader boards?)
· Do you choose the games you play, or do you play because everyone else does?
· Why are you playing these games? What do you think you will get out of them?
· What do these games minimise or neglect which is also important?
· Are there any games you ought to reject altogether?
· Are you envious of anyone who rejects the game?
· On your deathbed, will you be happy you played this game?
